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OUYA Responds To Amazon 'Borrowing Their Model' With FireTV

A small, inexpensive box that runs Android and plays games. That was OUYA’s dream when it was Kickstarted years ago, and now it seems it’s Amazon’s as well with their reveal of FireTV. While Amazon is looking to take on Roku and AppleApple TV with their new streaming box, there’s a fair amount of the OUYA in it as well. Android games will be downloaded and played with an optional controller, and games are being developed exclusively for the system.

So, what does OUYA think about all this?

The dream behind OUYA has changed as of late. They’re turning over hardware development to outside parties, and now focusing on bringing their software system to many devices, not just their own. I spoke briefly with OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman regarding what she thinks about Amazon’s FireTV, and she didn’t seem terribly impressed. She believes OUYA is still the best games-based system out there, and Amazon looking at games as “bonus” is misguided.

Forbes: Will the OUYA in its new form be a competitor to Fire TV, or are there opportunities to work together?

Uhrman: OUYA is a gaming console first and foremost. Fire TV is a set top box with games an “added bonus.” There are certainly similarities, but for us, games are not simply an afterthought – they’re the whole point. And, with OUYA Everywhere, we are not focused on tying our games solely to our box. We will be on multiple devices.

What does OUYA make of the capabilities of Fire TV? What does OUYA do better, or what might you now need to improve on now?

I haven’t played with Fire TV’s yet so I can’t speak to their capabilities. Our focus remains on bringing innovative, inventive content to the TV from any creator — and gamers find great games.

What lessons should Amazon learn from OUYA, who has been in the space for a little while now?

Our focus is on building an open platform to bring great content to the TV. We are focused on providing developers the tools to do this easily and quickly and to help them find their community. Gamers want great games purpose built for the TV and we help them find them.

Do you believe the OUYA paved the way for this sort of thing and interest from larger companies, even if the box itself didn’t necessarily take off from a sales perspective?

Absolutely. When we first raised the idea of a new kind of console, people questioned our strategy. ‘How will you compete with the big players?’ they asked. Now, we see our vision borne out as big players like Amazon borrow our model.

How do you view all these devices/services including your own as a threat to traditional TV? Will these be the sorts of products that eventually erase cable?

The answer here is tied to content. Consumers will only drop cable if they are able to access the content they want without a traditional cable subscription. The industry is certainly moving in a direction but we’re not there yet.

Does OUYA look at traditional gaming as a competitor, or are services/devices like yours and Fire TV and entirely separate genre of gaming with little overlap to “regular” console and PC titles?

We offer something different from traditional consoles – an open platform where any developer can bring their content to the TV. We now have over 700 games (vast majority are free to try) and over 34,000 registered developers. We support early stage build of games (alpha and beta) and work closely with developers as they build and monetize their games. We provide access to our gamers for developers to talk with and engage. And, because OUYA is never final, it improves every month with added features and functions based directly on the feedback we receive from our community.

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I think there was always a fear that the initial OUYA buzz would show that there was interest in this sort of device, but then a bigger company would come along with a lot more money and resources and overwhelm them.

While I think that it’s great that OUYA is focused on games alone for the most part, with the resources Amazon has, I don’t think that their game marketplace will be anything sub-par either. And I can understand why people would want a singular cheap box that was both an Android games system and something that could utilize hundreds of other non-gaming applications. It’s going to be a tough battle.

OUYA is trying to adapt in the current marketplace and they clearly struck a nerve with their original idea. Hopefully they will figure out a way to compete or coexist with a giant like Amazon, and be able to realize their games-centric vision more fully.

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